Annual Report of Euram Bank Vienna 2018

MANAGEMENT REPORT
1. Business development and economic environment
Business model
As a small private bank, European American Investment Bank Aktiengesellschaft (Euram Bank)
provides banking and other financial services in Austria, Germany, Central and Eastern Europe, in
the Middle East and Central Asia, and in Russia. The focus is on business with private and corporate
clients. Our highly qualified staff are drawn from various nations, reflecting the cosmopolitan
corporate culture of Euram Bank.
Euram Bank is mainly specializing in the business areas of Private Banking / Real Estate Financing
and Asset Management; the Card Payment Services division is operated on an opportunistic basis.
Euram Bank is 100% privately owned. Senior management and financial investors hold a majority
stake in the bank through Euram Holding AG.
Business development
In 2018, the global economy passed the zenith of the current economic cycle. While in the USA,
due to strong fiscal impulses, the economy was working out nicely and recovery was continuing
in Europe as well, if at noticeably reduced speed, the momentum was lost in many emerging
markets following the beginning of the year, and some were facing massive setbacks in economic
activity (Argentina, Turkey). Additionally, due to increasing political uncertainties, to a tightening
of the monetary policy in the USA, and to growing economic protectionism, the challenges facing
the world economy were growing. In Europe, it was primarily Great Britain’s imminent exit from
the European Union that caused political tensions. The European Central Bank (ECB) pursued
its zero-interest strategy, leaving the prime rate unchanged at a record low of 0% (since March
2016), while discontinuing the government bond purchase program at the end of 2018. As already
in 2017, the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) raised the prime rate to the range of 2.25% to 2.50%
in 2018, in a total of four interest rate hikes of 25 basis points each.
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